16 minutes ago, BleakSquadron said:

Just goes to show how often I use them. So you're telling me a 1 shot range 2-3 ion cannon whose only benefit is ionizing large ships once in one shot is worth the same points as an ion cannon which works every time you want to use it at all standard ranges? I will edit my above post however as I did under credit the missile.

Sadly thats not right. IPM does one damage, Ion Torpedoes do dice damage. Not that dice damage and 1 hit will differ too much on 3 attack dice. Its not a big issue to me. IPM shines on Deathfire when you can't make room for Homing Missiles.

33 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Ion Pulse Missiles continue to be underrated I see. Prockets also have a place.

For me, Ion Pulse Missiles don't have enough modifications or confirmation of hitting. Here is my thinking:

I often find myself going against Double Defender and Palpatine. Even when I use my Bossk / Ketsu PS9 list, i can just about kill a defender in a single turn if the stars align and here is why:

Ketsu must be in range 1 of my intended target to reduce agility. With a focus and two rolls from Dengar, I MUST get four hits as three may well result in zero damage (two agility + focus + evade + Palp).

Now with them on one agility, I fire the homing missile which has a focus + guidance + target lock (K4 Sec) to help it. Now the homing missile locks out the evade token (if they still have it), 4-LOM locks out the focus token (if they still have it) and the three dice modifications I have means I could end up with three to four hits. If they naturally evade, Zuckuss helps. Even then, Palpatine is still a threat (if they have it available).

All that, just to ensure I land three to four hits. (Perfect world, it is five with Bossk and the Defender goes POOF!)

So in essence, its not just the missile, its the cost of everything with it just to ensure it actually does something. VI, 4-LOM, Zuckuss, Guidance and K4, that is 6 additional points just to make sure the blasted thing can hit, ONCE. If that was a Ion Pulse missile, i don't even have re-rolls.

Now this is a Scum ship, Rebels don't have that amount of modification, just relying on good ol' fashion luck and chips and I have seen a Miranda Homing Missile, which only had chips and TL as mods, do zero damage on more than one occasion which is upsetting because not only did Miranda just lose a 5 point upgrade for zero effect, but she is now tokenless, likely in arc and lost a shield for the privilege. If that was a Ion Pulse Missile, she would of just had chips for mods, so even less chance.

Other option is to use Long Range Scanners and go for the focus / target lock, but anything other than a Homing Missile is just relying on good dice and a focus to help and in my opinion, that's not enough.

Proton Rockets have their place, sure, but they are essentially a 3 point missile (5 points for A wings) that NEEDS to be on a high PS, high agility platform and fire them at the absolute first opportunity to do so before the ship melts and again, only has a focus token for modification. That's not great odds to me.

I may be crazy but I would argue that dropping the price on Homing Missiles by 1 point would be good for the game. Where Homing Missiles are currently used (Bossk or Miranda) a 1 point drop would not be a huge deal. Making them cheaper would make Tie Bombers with Homers a real threat. Maybe the Homer Z swarm becomes too scary but it would put a real hurt on Defenders and maybe tame their effect on the meta. If you do that, Concussion Missiles become worthless though.

Realistically, Advanced Homers are the only ones that need a tweak. I would argue that making them range 1-2 is probably the best method to fix them. I remember being pretty excited for them when I first read the card but the range restriction has just proved crippling. I don't remember EVER seeing them used.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Sadly thats not right. IPM does one damage, Ion Torpedoes do dice damage. Not that dice damage and 1 hit will differ too much on 3 attack dice. Its not a big issue to me. IPM shines on Deathfire when you can't make room for Homing Missiles.

I typically take flechette torpedoes over IPM on my Deathfire, but conner net is my mine of choice so there is still ion in his tool kit. By the time deathfire shoots, the opponent should be tokenless if you have been able to focus fire with an iota of dice luck so the 3 attack dice can do more damage than typically expected of 3 dice. In my experience at least. The Ion torpedoes are priced correctly in my opinion, but I may even drop them by a point to 4. At that cost they wouldn't make anything useless as proton torpedoes would still be easier to modify for a single target, and they aren't like assault missiles doing collateral damage. Ion is a strong ability for sure but it isn't as tangible as just dealing damage. There has to be real planning going on to use it, because you don't want to ion a target and not be able to follow up on it in the next round.

2 hours ago, Viktus106 said:

For me, Ion Pulse Missiles don't have enough modifications or confirmation of hitting. Here is my thinking:

If that was a Ion Pulse missile, i don't even have re-rolls.

If that was a Ion Pulse Missile, she would of just had chips for mods, so even less chance.

You do realize that Ion Pulse Missile also lets you keep the Target Lock when you fire it, right? So....you still get to modify it with the TL like Homing Missile.

Also, the concept of using Ion Pulse Missile vs. someone like Tie Defenders actually works out better if you can take advantage of the Ionization. So...Lets say you get to hit the Defender with the Ion Pulse Missile. That means it's going 1 straight for the next turn. You know where it's going to be. Get Ketsu in R1 to give it the free Tractor Beam token and reduce it's agility. Then, you get to fire at R1 with -1 Agility for the Defender. It doesn't have the Evade token. If you had it bump Ketsu, then it doesn't have an action (but TB it away so you can fire). It's 2 Green dice with maybe a Focus and then Palp. Also...if you have another ship to get in R1 you are rolling a lot of dice at the target that is pretty restricted that round.

In other words, the Homing Missile lets you hit hard for a round. The Ion Pulse Missile sets you up so that your entire list can take advantage of it and smack the Tie Defender for the next round.

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

You do realize that Ion Pulse Missile also lets you keep the Target Lock when you fire it, right? So....you still get to modify it with the TL like Homing Missile.

Also, the concept of using Ion Pulse Missile vs. someone like Tie Defenders actually works out better if you can take advantage of the Ionization. So...Lets say you get to hit the Defender with the Ion Pulse Missile. That means it's going 1 straight for the next turn. You know where it's going to be. Get Ketsu in R1 to give it the free Tractor Beam token and reduce it's agility. Then, you get to fire at R1 with -1 Agility for the Defender. It doesn't have the Evade token. If you had it bump Ketsu, then it doesn't have an action (but TB it away so you can fire). It's 2 Green dice with maybe a Focus and then Palp. Also...if you have another ship to get in R1 you are rolling a lot of dice at the target that is pretty restricted that round.

In other words, the Homing Missile lets you hit hard for a round. The Ion Pulse Missile sets you up so that your entire list can take advantage of it and smack the Tie Defender for the next round.

Think I got confused between Ion Pulse and Ion Torp! I stand corrected.

Whilst the above is certainly true once you land the ion, actually landing it is far more difficult outside of the Ketsu trick.

I mean, another ship firing three red focus/TL/Chips versus three green focus/evade/palp is just not going to happen when you really need it. Plus you need to set it up in such a way that you can take advantage of it afterwards and personally, I think that is a little beyond my capabilities as a pilot.

Also, if I am going to go through all the trouble of setting up my Ketsu / Bossk missile combo, I would rather do the four - six points of damage on the Defender rather than the one to two points of damage that an Ion would bring.

Destruction is simple, planning two turns based on a "what if" is far more complicated.

I could see it's merit against a large base ship though, such as against a Shadow Caster or YT to allow a turn of range 1 shots from a Headhunter swarm or something like that.

I hear you. Personally, I think the power creep in the game has just gone up a notch or two and some old stuff gets even harder to pull off.

I agree that the biggest problems with ordnance isn't cost, but action economy, setup, etc. I have long advocated for a torpedo that does a fixed amount of damage, or that rolls say, 3 dice to hit and then 5 dice for damage, or rolls dice to determine a hit then cancel all dice and apply 4 hit results. It's hard enough to set up the shot, get the range optimal, etc, then have to spend the TL to fire, so at best you have a 4 dice attack with focus. Yes, chips help. homing missile is good because you don't have to spend the lock, but you really need TL and focus to make firing the missle / torp worthwhile. So you need 2 turns to set it up. Most bombers don't live long enough to do that twice, so EM is often not useful. chips are good, as is LRS. The best luck I have had is running a gamma vet with LRS and predator. Predator gives me the reroll I would lose with chips. I usually run a homing missle, EM, and a bomb, sometimes i throw on prockets as well, for 4 dice at range 1.

It's the best combo I have found but it's still not great. It's expensive, and probably less efficient than a 3 dice ship with predator. I'd like to see a title for the tie bomber that would let it equip 2 mods, similar to the royal guard title for interceptors.

homing missle and EM is 7 points, so that's the same cost as an HLC on a b-wing, which can use it's systems slot to get a TL for free every round, giving it a 4 dice attack from range 1-3 with TL and focus almost every time, and that's without predator or another EPT.

I still cannot seem to make my beloved tie bomber really be the feared instrument of imperial impression that it should be.

19 minutes ago, Darthfish said:

homing missle and EM is 7 points, so that's the same cost as an HLC on a b-wing, which can use it's systems slot to get a TL for free every round, giving it a 4 dice attack from range 1-3 with TL and focus almost every time, and that's without predator or another EPT.

I still cannot seem to make my beloved tie bomber really be the feared instrument of imperial impression that it should be.

Not everything can take a Cannon, but many Imperial ships can take Missiles. FCS works on the 2nd shot, but not the first. Homing Missiles remove the Evade token from the equation. Guidance Chip can modify the dice after the TL.

I agree chadwick. I was just using the bwing with FCS and HLC as a point of comparison. It throws four dice at all ranges, gets free TLs, so at least some of it's attacks have both TL and focus.

with bombers, if the target you have TL on moves out of arc, or biggs enters the equation, or they move to a range that your ordnance won't work at, all that setup is wasted. I cannot attack a target that I don't have a TL on (except for prockets) the bwing has the option to attack something else.

As an aside, I wish they had a bomber that had Nera's ability. Or, perhaps a torpedo that can shoot out of arc.....

28 minutes ago, Darthfish said:

As an aside, I wish they had a bomber that had Nera's ability. Or, perhaps a torpedo that can shoot out of arc.....

I think that would be an ability that would have made the punisher playable, the reason the punisher isn't playable and the warden is playable is the turret. Idk if it saves it completely but certainly would make it more worth it. Take long range scanners, instead of engaging, fly right past them and then fire, get out of dodge, re lock and do it again. Sounds fun at least lol

Assault missiles:

1: They have no innate dice mod, their ideal targets generally have 3 Agi and possibly an Evade token so scoring the ideal hit may be harder than the missile is worth.

2: The ideal target is pretty rare.

Advanced homing missile:

1: The odd's of a bad crit are too high to warrant the shot in the first place. Make it "choose one of X" or something!

Ion pulse missiles:

1: Straight up too expensive for a 1 use niche purpose card (Ioning large ships that all-too often couldn't care less about arc.)

Advanced Homing Missiles (2) *

Assault Missiles (4) *

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Homing Missiles (5)

Ion Pulse Missiles (2) *

Proton Rockets (3)

XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1)